POLICE AND THIEVES

Cool-headed, cold-hearted Baltimore mechanic Dan Bridger, who just wants to be left alone to ply his trade as a professional thief, goes on the offensive to avenge the murder of his brother a continent away.

Seth Bridger wasn’t like his brother. When he was gunned down in a parking lot, he was enrolled part-time in law school, employed as a probation and parole officer whose offenders—he called them clients—ungrudgingly respected him, and keeping steady company with fellow student Elaine Ogilvie. Even though Bridger had long lost touch with the kid brother he left with an abusive father when Bridger struck out on his own, Elaine’s phone call brings him running. The survivors do not bond. Nor do the Seattle police welcome Bridger’s interference, Det. John Wilkening, because he’s a lazy time-server who just wants the case to go away, and Sgt. Dean Coates because he killed Seth himself to protect a deal for a monster stash of Ecstasy the men of Coats’ Special Investigative Unit had stolen. With an impressive array of enemies carrying badges and willing to use deadly force arrayed against him and his only real ally, Seth’s friend and colleague Chris Rider, Bridger might seem to be outnumbered and outgunned. But readers who devoured his debut (Bridger, 2010) at a single gulp will know better.

Fast, efficient and violent in all the right places, though not as gripping as Hunt’s very best dead-eyed actioners (Get Maitland, 2011, etc.).